


Being Things

by Jo (jmathieson)



Series: Tangents and Intersections ~ Kink Bingo 2013 [41]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: kink_bingo, Established Relationship, Ice Cream, M/M, Medical Procedures, Objectification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmathieson/pseuds/Jo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Clint or Phil had to use each other for a mission, and the one time when it was for fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Things

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Bingo Round Six (2013) ~ Objectification
> 
> NOTE: The "Graphic Depictions Of Violence" is for graphic descriptions of canon-typical injury, including broken teeth, and graphic descriptions of canon-typical battlefield first-aid/medical procedures. The descriptions are of the injuries, not the violence that caused them.

**Stepladder**

"I need to get a look out that window."

"No problem boss, climb on up." Barton braced his back against the wall, bent his knees, and grabbed hold of Coulson's hips. Almost before he knew it, Phil Coulson had been expertly boosted up and was standing unsteadily on Barton's shoulders, holding onto the window ledge for balance. Barton wrapped his long, strong fingers around Coulson's ankles and held him steady. 

Coulson watched as a security patrol went past.

"I need to time the patrols. How long can you hold me up here?"

"Twenty minutes if you need me to be able to use my arms right away, an hour if you don't," came the reply.

Looking out the high window of the cell they were being held in, Coulson's estimation of Clint Barton rose another notch. Rather than a bragging, 'As long as you need,' or even an honest 'I don't know,' Barton had been not only able to give him a precise answer, but include a tactically important variable. As he watched for the return of the patrol, he started to compose the memo requesting that he be assigned as Barton's permanent handler in his head.

 

**Writing desk**

Coulson dropped to his knees beside Clint Barton.

"Barton, you OK?" The face that turned to look at his was battered and bruised, one eye swollen shut and a sickening stream of blood and drool coming from one side of his mouth.

Coulson tapped his comm link. "I need medics in the far south corner of the warehouse immediately. Agent Down."

Barton waved his hand and said, "I'm OK boss." At least that's what Coulson assumed Barton was trying to say, what came out was a mumble and more blood.

"Don't try to talk." Coulson put one hand on Barton's shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. "The medic will be here soon."

"In-del" Barton said, slowly, trying to enunciate as clearly as possible with split lips.

"You have intel on the mission?"

Barton nodded, "Da 'ark ish going do..." Barton stopped, coughing. He turned his head and spat a mouthful of blood and broken teeth.

"Don't talk. Here." Coulson took a pen out of his inside pocket, and then started feeling around for his notebook. 

"Damn." He'd left the notebook, and his wallet, and anything else that might have some paper in it in the van when he'd changed into tactical gear. Barton leaned almost drunkenly over and fished a slip out of the pocket of his jeans. Taking Coulson's pen, he smoothed the paper out on his thigh and tried to write, but the pen kept poking through the thin paper of the receipt.

"Here, use my back." Coulson turned, and Barton laid the paper over the ceramic plate in Coulson's body armor, wrote for a minute, and then handed the paper to Coulson.

Coulson read it and looked up into Clint's eyes.

"Good work, Barton."

The mangled face twitched into something that tried to be a smile, and Coulson was about to put his hand out again, to touch, to reassure, to thank, but mostly just to touch, when a medic dropped to her knees next to them, and Coulson backed off a pace, touching his earpiece again and relaying the information Clint had just given him.

 

**Rope**

"The good news is, I can get down OK."

"And the bad news?"

"You can't."

"Barton, I'm more than capable - "

"Boss, Phil. Look, I know you're a total badass at just about everything, but I haven't seen you logging a whole lot of hours on the climbing wall at the gym, and even if you had, this is a brick wall, the holds are fingertips only. It's gonna be tough, even for me."

Phil leaned out the window that they'd just pried open and had to admit that Barton was right. They were three stories up, too high for any kind of safe fall, and the wall was plain brick between the stories.

"Any ideas?"

"One, but I don't think you're going to like it."

"Try me."

"OK, if I climb out, and hang by the windowsill here, you can climb down me to the ledge of the window directly below us. It's got a safety grille that you can hang onto until I get down, and then we'll do it again to the first floor window. From there it's an easy drop."

"What's not to like? Sounds like a plan to me."

"Really? OK, then, let's go."

The next fifteen minutes ran the gamut from terrifying (hanging off Barton's belt, three stories above the ground, and watching Barton climb down the side of the building holding on only by his fingertips wedged into the cracks between the bricks) to ridiculous (clinging to the security grille on the window of the building, correcting the spelling and grammar of a "Notice to Employee's" taped to the other side of it in his head, and wondering briefly if this was the closest he was ever going to get to Barton's ass while hanging off Barton's belt, three stories above the ground). 

Once they were both down on the ground, Barton looked up at the window they'd come from.

"Fuck me, we did it," he said.

"Not now Barton, we need to get these blueprints back to base first."

And they both started giggling almost hysterically, as they stumbled off through the night.

 

**Tripod**

Barton brought the rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.

"Shit," he said, quietly and bitterly.

"What's wrong, Barton?" 

"I can't... I'm sorry boss, I can't get the shot."

Coulson turned and immediately saw why. Barton's left arm was dangling from his shoulder, a makeshift bandage tied just above the elbow where a bullet had smashed through it ten minutes ago. Barton was struggling to hold the rifle steadily enough with one hand to pull off a 700-meter night shot from the top of a building.

"Here," said Coulson, stepping in front of him. "Use my shoulder."

Barton let the rifle barrel drop onto Coulson's shoulder and exhaled with relief. Phil felt hot breath on the back of his neck and willed himself to stand still and breathe normally. Nothing happened.

"Barton?"

"Sorry boss..."

"Take your time Barton."

"It's not...I'm having trouble synchronizing our breathing."

Coulson thought about that, realized why it would be necessary, but...

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah," Barton said and from his tone, Coulson could tell he was steeling himself to say something that he was afraid would go over badly. "Take my left hand, and put it on your side so I can feel you breathe."

Coulson was frozen for a moment, then slowly, carefully, trying not to do any more damage to Barton's injured arm, did as he was asked. Barton sent out a short prayer of thanks for whatever gods sent him Phil Coulson. Anyone else would have spent five minutes arguing, proposing alternatives, deciding, wasting time while Barton stood there, barely conscious and bleeding, but not Coulson. Coulson calmly took his word for it, and did the thing that needed to be done. 

Which in this instance meant holding Barton's hand, wet and slippery with his own blood, pressed to the side of his ribcage, and then standing stock still, breathing normally and evenly, while he waited for a rifle to go off in his ear. 

It did, and the mark dropped, and Coulson turned as he felt Barton sagging behind him. He caught him as the rifle clattered to the ground.

"Did I get him?" 

"Of course you did, Clint. You always do."

 

**Retractor**

"...medical evac immediately. Agent Down."

Clint heard the tail end of Phil's terse orders as he thumped to his knees beside the prone body of Agent Jenkins.

"Here's the med kit."

Coulson had unzipped Jenkins' tac suit, exposing a large wet patch on his t-shirt. Clint handed Coulson a pair of EMT scissors.

"Shit," they both said when they saw what was underneath.

"Get back on the comms, tell them it's urgent, and find out how long until the chopper gets here." Coulson was tearing open packages of sterile dressings and pressing them to the large, ragged wound. They turned red immediately. 

"Ten minutes," Clint said, his voice tight. Phil shook his head.

"He doesn't have ten minutes. There's a big, sharp piece of shrapnel in there, and it's moving every time he breathes. The bleeding's not going to stop while it's doing that. "

Clint didn't ask Phil how he knew this. Phil had been an Army Ranger in Iraq and Somalia. He'd seen enough shrapnel wounds to last a lifetime.

Phil lifted the pile of soaked bandages and stuck his fingers into the wound.

"Phil, what are you doing?"

"If I can get the shrapnel out and stuff the hole with gauze, it will start to clot. Then he might have a chance. Shit. It's too slippery, and I can't..." Phil was trying to reach in with a piece of gauze, but he was working blind.

"Clint, here, I need you to hold this open." Phil grabbed Clint's hand and stuck his fingers into Jenkins' chest. "OK, now pull back just a little, like that, good. Hold it right there. Just so I can..." Phil grabbed more gauze and tried to swab a clear view of the shard of metal. Clint held steady and blew out his breath.

"Clint, you OK?"

"Sure."

"How long can you hold that?"

"More than ten minutes."

"Yeah, OK. Just a few more seconds while I... Got it." Phil pulled the piece of shrapnel out. Blood gushed. Clint didn't move.

"Good. Good. Hold it open while I..." Phil stuffed most of the remaining gauze from the medical kit into the wound. "There. OK, well, that's the best I can do. You can let go now, Clint."

Clint forced his fingers to relax, and pulled his hand away from Jenkins' body. 

"Thanks, Clint."

"Sure."

Phil looked up into Clint's eyes and knew what he was thinking, because Phil was thinking it too: 'This could have been you.'

 

**... and the one time it was for fun**

"OK, now curl your fingers in, just a little more. Perfect." Phil took a firm grip on Clint's wrist, and used it to maneuver his fingers.

"Ow. That's cold!"

"Then I'll need to warm them up won't I?" Phil brought Clint's hand up to his face, and opened his mouth wide, guiding Clint's fingers inside. He closed his lips around them and sucked, making an appreciative noise before swallowing.

Clint rolled his eyes and assumed a put-upon expression as Phil dipped his fingers into the tub of "Cherry Garcia" ice cream again.

"When I said you would get to 'use me' any way you wanted, this isn't what I had in mind, Phil."

"Well, then, you should have said exactly what you meant when we made the bet. You're lucky I didn't decide that the apartment needed a footstool. You're not reneging on our bet, are you?"

"No... no of course not. It's just that I was thinking it would be something, y'know...sexy." Clint said as Phil sucked more ice cream off his fingers, and then swirled his tongue around them. On second thought, Phil sucking on his fingers was kinda sexy. 

"If you're good, and you stop whining - "

"I wasn't whining!"

"If you're very good, and you stop whining, then we could maybe move this to the bedroom."

"Yeah, and?"

"And get naked."

"Naked is good."

"And I could use you as the bowl, instead of as the spoon..."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks always to my excellent editors t! and Shazrolane.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at: [Queen of Wands](http://jmathieson-fic.tumblr.com/)


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